Machines have been designed in the past for wrapping material in a spiral form around a mandrel wherein the speed of a carriage moving beside a rotating carriage and the speed of rotation of the mandrel are controlled relatively. A machine for feeding wire onto such a mandrel is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,240,643 to Schroeder et al, Mar. 15, 1966. In this patented disclosure, however, the wire strands are not laid onto the surface of the covering material on the mandrel, the wire forms a body for supporting a coating of flexible insulating material that is fitted into a flexible outer casing to form an air duct. The resulting structure is a flexible pipe for use in an air conditioning system, the pipe being designed to easily bend around corners with the stretched apart coils of the support wire holding the insulation against the outer wall of the air pipe.
Another U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,073, to Wood, Oct. 10, 1968, shows a rotating mandrel and a carriage moving alongside the mandrel in a loosely adjustable but coordinated manner to apply a strip of fabric of more or less exact width spirally onto a core means supported on a mandrel to produce a fabric covered cylindrical element adapted to be mounted on a roller to form a roll applicator for paint. The movement of the carriage relative to the mandrel is made adjustable so that the slight variations in width of the strip may be compensated for so the wrapping can be made with the edges of the strip touching one another so there will be no gaps in the covering on the completed roller.